Accidental crude oil spills are caused in oil extraction fields as well as the exit of sludges accompanied by oil wastes, which pollute the environment. These residues sometimes in liquid form are again introduced into the earth and consequently gradually damage the mantle, also disturbing the water-bearing strata.
Although efforts have been increased in order to avoid spills, given the nature of the operations during oil extraction, this is inevitable, since the oil ducts often have to be cleaned ad undesirable materials that accompany the oil separated out.
Generally, waste dams are built which remain as pollutants once the well is exhausted.
This invention is proposed in order to avoid these dams remaining and to return these oil residues and sludges to nature with a useful value for normal use.
According to the best of the knowledge of the authors of this invention, conductive methods for recovering these sludges have not been developed, since only a procedure for separating oil by leaching has been developed, with rather poor results.
This method competes advantageously if compared against a leaching method, because it uses conventional materials whose cost is not a strong factor, since the work of converting the oil wastes to alcohols and their degradation is done by anaerobic bacteria that are found in nature.
On the other hand, the time for biodegrading waste materials is not really definitive, because while the well is operating the wastes located in dams can be biodegrading without this operation being an impediment in the first stage, that is, the oil extraction stage. Once the well is exhausted and the field is closed, the micro-organisms will continue working until a humus is obtained, with the field continuing to be useful for other purposes and without any pollution.